


Broken

by novaisnotinsane



Category: Who Killed Markiplier, markiplier - Fandom
Genre: Celine the Seer - Freeform, Colonel William, Darkiplier - Freeform, Gen, Insanity, Markiplier - Freeform, Mayor Damien - Freeform, Sorry Not Sorry, Who Killed Markiplier - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-04-05
Packaged: 2019-04-14 14:53:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14138358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novaisnotinsane/pseuds/novaisnotinsane
Summary: It's been a while since Who Killed Markiplier stopped tugging at our heart strings so much, so me being the little devil I am, I decided to write a short story taking place just after the events of WKM.I'm not sorry. :)TW: attempted suicide, insanity





	1. Mirrors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dark doesn't like his past.
> 
> I don't think his past likes him very much, either.

He has learned to avoid mirrors. Over the years, he thought, the pain would lessen and the guilt fade away. But it never did. All that’s left now is a reflection of his darkest hour, a memory that clings to him no matter how he tries to escape it. He no longer keeps mirrors in his house. Maybe because he’s scared of what he’ll see. Maybe he’s scared of what he _won’t_ see.

Visitors have learned not to ask questions. It’s not like they’ll get any answers. His past is his past, and it’s not like they won’t believe even if he did decide to indulge in his best-kept secret.

His newest visitor is a stunning young woman who throws herself at his heels all too easily. It disgusts him. He doesn’t like easy prey, despite what everyone would think. What entices him is a challenge, someone whose shell isn’t as easy to break… especially someone who can see past everything he’s done and see the broken man hidden within and _fix him._

The woman takes a curl of her hair and twists it ‘round her finger, around and around and around in a hypnotic circle. He smirks at her. The woman believes she’s succeeding in seducing him, when in reality, his smirk is because she has no idea how easy it would be for him to twist her neck the same way she twists her hair. He brushes away the thought, regaining his composure. The woman flashes her brilliant white teeth at him, blinding him for a moment. He decides to smile back at her. She blinks, as if his action was unexpected.

“You’re quite a doll,” he says smoothly. He can practically see her melt at his deep, husky voice. There were only a handful of people- men or women- who could resist his charms. But, most of them are- he shuts down the thought immediately before it can go anywhere else.

The woman tilts her head, pursing her lips. “Are you alright? You seem…” she trails her fingers over the various items on his desk, slow but intent. “...Distracted.” He shrugs, sensing an opportunity to get her out of there. “Should I leave?”

He wants to scream the affirmative at her, to yell at her to go _away_ as if he were a child. He takes in a deep breath to calm himself. “I believe that would be best. Forgive me, I must be feeling a little under the weather. I should get some rest.” The woman nods, squinting at him as she smiles again, something that is becoming an annoyance to him. She says something, but he pays her no mind. She isn’t worth his time. She finally leaves, and he is left alone with his thoughts. Again.

To clear his mind- or perhaps to distract it- he decides to take a walk. It cleanses the soul, some say, yet he always sees the blood on his hands no matter how many times he takes one. He squeezes his eyes shut, forcing his mind to shut up.

He doesn’t know where he’s walking. Many a day he has spent among silent walls in his domain, wandering aimlessly. He stumbles down stairwells, silver-topped cane in hand, and trudges through hallways, his heart heavier than his footsteps. For hours, his mind is set on one thing and one thing only: putting one foot in front of another. It was nearly sundown when he heard it: their voice. Singing.

It is soft at first, calm and beautiful. Then, as he keeps walking on, the sound grows louder, and he can make out the glimmer of the one mirror he keeps in the house. He seldom visits it; yet on so many occasions, he has found his feet steered towards it. He gulps, but walks on until he finally comes face to face with his one weakness, his one downfall, his one everlasting Tartarus.

He sees them, holding a photgraph of his former self and resting against some invisible wall. His heart both speeds up and stops every time he sees them, and his mind fills with the very thoughts he tries block out.

They sing softly, a small, single tear spilling from under their eyelashes. They haven’t noticed him yet, thank goodness. He takes one step forward and their head snaps up, their dull, tear-stained eyes meeting with his tortured ones. He chokes up, the bottled-up feelings within threatening to come flooding out. They say nothing. Fine, then. He will break the silence.

“Long time, no see,” he says as unemotionally as possible. “Are you… enjoying your stay?” They tilt their head, staying silent. He swallows thickly, beginning to feel sick. “...I can always leave, you know, if you don't behave.” At this, they narrow their eyes.

“But you won’t. You’ll stay,” they say simply, staring up at him the same way they had all those years ago when he’d- he stiffened. “Nightmares again?” they ask sympathetically. They finally break their gaze with him, focusing on the grey slate floor beneath them. In a sad, broken whisper, so soft he barely hears it, they say, “I miss you, Damien.”

He twitches, his nostrils flaring in anger. “I’m. Not. Damien,” he snarls dangerously. “Get whatever fantasy you have out of your head. _Damien_ ,” he mocks, “can’t stop me and neither can you!” He sneers at them, straightening his tie.

“Finished?”

His gaze narrows. “Oh, I’m only just starting. This isn’t the end, mark my words.” They shrug, letting the photograph they’re holding float to the ground, landing face-up facing him. He turns away, unable to look at the photo. He lets out a breath, running a hand through his unkempt hair. They begin to sing again, a song they have sung for him many times before. “Shut up,” he growls quietly. The music only grows louder, as if taunting him. “I said shut up!” He hits the mirror with his fist, and silence returns after a feeble squeak. Upon inspecting the mirror, he finds a tiny crack crawling its way through the image of their terrified, pitiful face. It gives him a sense of twisted satisfaction.

“...I’ll go now… I’ll say hi to Wil for you-” they’re cut off by his animalistic growl. The mention of his broken friend sets off something inside him. Memories flood him, memories of love, laughter, betrayal, and death. His breathing intensifies, to the point where he is whimpering. They have set off more than memories in him. They’ve set off something dangerous. Dangerous, and deadly.

He stalks towards the mirror, something dark gleaming in his eyes. They’ve seen it before- it had been the last thing they’d seen before… all this. They let out a terrified cry and curl up into a ball as if trying to protect themselves. He growls again, his head twitching wildly.

“I’m sorry, Damien,” they whisper.

He roars in anger and rips the glass from its frame with inhuman strength. He can hardly hear their shrieks of pain and fear over the sound of his thumping blood as he throws the glass as hard as he can to the ground. It shatters on impact, decorating the floor with tiny sparkles of glass. He returns to reality with a start, staring at the shards, unbelieving. He blinks and tries to process what he’s just done.

For the first time in years, he lets his emotions run wild. The first he feels is regret. Oh, how he wishes he could fix his precious mirror. He feels anger, guilt, and- sadness. An aching, yearning sadness that consumes him whole and leaves a shell of… whatever he’d been. Was this what they felt, all those years in the mirrors? Was this the punishment he has cursed them to?

A strangled sob wrangles its way out of his throat, penetrating the suffocating silence. He sinks to his knees, his palms stretched out on the floor, not caring that the tiny fragments are embedding themselves in his skin, cutting him, marking him. Another sob leaves him, and soon he is curled upon the glass, weeping like a child who has lost their mother. The void only deepens, tightening its clawed grasp on him.

There are only three things left for him now. Three broken things: a mind. A heart.

And mirrors.


	2. Guns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wilford is a madman unsure if he wants to go on.
> 
> TW: Attempted/Implied suicide

“Where are they? What did you do to them?” he sobs angrily, curled upon his bed like a wounded creature. He’s shaking, his breathing erratic, and his heart wild. All he can do at times like these is lay immobile, save for the random twitch, and let his thoughts attack him, his memories forming swords of impossible lengths and his regrets becoming warriors of inhuman strengths. All he can do is hope he’s kept his drawers locked.

He cries out for his lost friends as a child in the dark might call for his mother. “I killed them. I killed them. I killed them… didn’t I?” His memory has started to fail, further deepening the rabbit hole to Wonderland in his mind. Further deepening the bottles of we-can-make-you-okay and the-storm-will-pass-if-you-drink-me.

How he wishes he could find a white rabbit of his own and escape from his ghosts.

He still sees their faces. Three, all smiling and happy, their eyes still alive. Those faces, those wretched faces, they still haunt him. His nightmares feature them like Hollywood darlings, cackling and taunting him. ‘You could’ve saved us,’ they whisper every night. He can never wake up in time to not see their final moments with him replayed with exquisite detail. He wakes up screaming every morning.

“It’s just a joke, it’s just a joke, it’s just a joke, it’s just a goddamn joke…” he whimpers, rocking back and forth to calm his tattered nerves. “...right?” he whimpers softly.

“You know it was no joke…” a voice whispers. “You’ll find peace if you just stop lying to yourself.” He shoots up, searching around frantically. It’s their voice- they’re _here_. He can finally see them again, after all this time. He sees a figure in the mirror and turns and-

It’s… it’s… them…

He calls their name, once, then twice. They don’t respond. He calls a little louder, maybe they just didn’t hear him, and their gaze flicks up to him. A ghost of a sad smile is etched across their face, warped into something defeated. Something lost. Something broken.

They blink slowly, as if time moves differently wherever they are. “I... don’t blame you,” they say. His heart twists, their words squeezing it like an iron fist. He takes a sharp breath, letting his face do the talking for him. “You didn’t mean to, I know that…” Their voice, once a comfort, a symbol of lost old dreams and fond memories, now plagues him of what he did to them, a reminder of his eternal punishment, his ghosts, his guns.

“I’m sorry…” he croaks out, falling to his knees with a thud. “I’m sorry, now leave me be!” he bellows like a madman. He lets out a heartbroken wail of remorse. “I only meant to save my friends!” he confesses, tearing at his hair. “I didn’t mean to… to…”

He can’t bring himself to speak the truth, the empty silence filling with the pitiful sound of his cries.

“I forgive you…”

His head whips upward, and he stands slowly, still sniffling. He wipes his eyes on his shirt stained with signs of sadness. “W-what did you say?” he asks, almost hopefully. They look back at him from under their lashes, looking so much like- no. He won’t let himself think of her.

“I forgive you,” they repeat. “I… blame myself, to be honest.” His heart drops six feet below ground.

“No, no, no, don’t- don’t blame yourself, it wasn’t you, it- it was…” he falters. “...I don’t want to blame anyone,” he mumbles. More faces come to mind, faces from that night. That night he lost... everything. He wraps his arms around his shivering body. His mind is warping again, his worst nightmares that he wishes were nothing more than nightmares are flashing before his eyes as if he is about to die. “Oh, my friends, why did we ever trust him? He knew there was nothing to celebrate… it was like he knew what would happen…”

“Like we’d lost the game before we’d even begun to play?” they chime in. He nods, unable to speak as he sees visions of her. In his mind, she smirks at him, drawing him in, telling him he’s not doing anything wrong. He smiles, bittersweet tears in his eyes. But then the visions turn sour: her screaming, a door closing on an ominous figure, red and blue and white light searing into his brain like a mark, a brand.

“How can you stand it?” He can hardly choke the words out, biting his tongue down so he won’t start blathering secrets. He bits so hard he tastes crimson, metallic blood.

“I don’t,” they say simply. “We’re all mad in this twisted world. Don’t beat yourself up over it. Even Dam-”

“Don’t you dare speak his name,” he says, all too seriously. “He doesn’t deserve to be remembered.” His hands subconsciously curl into fists, white with rage. That demon stole her from him, even though she wasn’t really _his_ to begin with. His friend betrayed him- betrayed them all.

Deep down he knows it wasn’t his friend’s fault, but he _needs_ someone to blame, even if he doesn’t _want_ to.

He takes a shaky breath, feeling dizzy.

“Put the gun down, Wil,” they snap suddenly. He looks down at his hands to find himself clutching his silver revolver, his reflection strange on the curved surface. Somehow he had managed to find his gun. He hadn’t locked the drawers last night. “Put the gun down,” they repeat, slow and coaxing, just like-

“You remind me so much of her…” he mumbles, fiddling with the firearm. It’s locked and loaded. He looks at them to find them… crying? Almost invisible tears fall down their face, their head in their hands, and their shoulders shaking visibly.

“I miss her so much,” they cry. He freezes, unsure of what to do. How unexpected, to switch the roles of the crier and the comforter.

“I… do… to..” he whispers, wrangling the words from his mouth. He sits on the bed, the mattress sinking slightly from his weight, made all the more heavier by his guilt. “Stop it,” he growls, his eyes flaring with something that may just be madness.

“W-what?”

He feels himself involuntarily twitch. “Stop digging up these memories! Stop driving me mad!” he yells, his heart beating in time with his racing thoughts.

The gun is loaded, something inside him whispers, sickly sweet.

The gun is loaded.

The gun loaded.

_The. Gun. Is. Loaded._

A pop, a scream, and the mirror fractures like a soul.

He looks at the abandoned, broken mirror, and another vision hits him harder than a sledgehammer. A different sound after the gunshot, and then falling… falling… falling…

He sees the gun in his hand, his arm moving up on its own. He hears another shot, _crack-BOOM_ in his ear, and he falls into darkness.

 

Two eyes open, blinking in confusion. A hand reaches up to touch a head, coming back bloody. It vanishes before the eyes. No… no, he doesn’t _want_ to go on. Let him rest, please.

 

He screams.


	3. Roses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Celine is all alone.
> 
> Until she isn't anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hahaha I forgot there was a third part to this  
> here you go! :)

She always touches the rose she clasps whenever the darkness gets too much for her. If she strains her ears, she can hear their voices, calling out to her. Comforting her. Haunting her. Reminding her of the power she once had.

The dark isn’t cold, despite what others would think. It’s warm, like a hug, and a soft rhythm beats through like a pulse, like a mother’s heart in a womb. It calms her to sleep some nights, and keeps her awake other times, wide-eyed and frantic as she curls into herself, unable to protect herself.

At times like those, she stays sane by remembering them and their innocence. They don’t need another ghost. They don’t need another weight on their shoulders. They don’t need her.

She used to be able to call their name and see them. Now they hardly ever show themselves, leaving her along for the rest of eternity. Alone, in the dark. She sighs, rubbing her temples, trying to make the pain behind her eyes go away.

Calling their name out of habit, she falls back on the floor, feeling the rhythm vibrate through it. She closes her eyes, letting the darkness crawl over her like a blanket, wrapping her in its icy warmth. She waits, straining her ears for a noise, _anything_ , that might alert her to their presence. She really needs to see them again.

“Hello?” a meek voice mumbles, fear evident.

In a flash, she sits up, staring straight at an old friend. A breath of relief leaves her. They came. They care. They remember. _They came._

“Hello. What’s happened since… whenever you last came?” she asks, yearning for any news on her lost friends. They stay silent, not meeting her eyes. Something has happened. “W-what’s happened? What’s going on?” she asks worriedly, her brow furrowing. They don’t respond. She _tsks_ in annoyance, repeating her question. They lift their heads slowly, blinking, and look around, bewildered.

“He’s getting stronger,” they whisper fearfully, unbelieving. “He’s getting more powerful…” They look at her. “And you’re getting weaker…” They fall to their knees, a soft moan of agony coming from their lips. “So am I…”

She reaches for their hand. But it passes right through, as though they are a ghost and have been all this time. They flicker, rapid-fire blackouts in quick succession like gunshots. In the space between flickers, they go stark white and black as the deepest night, like in the movies, a halo of bloody red light emanating from them. She yanks her hand back, afraid. It would be like last time, when she took his hand and was transported… here.

They tilt their head, betrayal flashing across their face as they huff. “Why won’t you trust me?” they ask, their eyes burning into hers. She looks away, swallowing.

“I- I trust you,” she stammers. _Liar_ , her mind says. _You know what happens to liars._ “Shut up!” she cries, clutching her head, sinking her claws into her scalp. The stinging pain overpowers the sickly sweet, husky voice.

They flicker again, this time replaced by different versions of them, some with limbs bent at odd angles, others with black abysses for eyes, their smiles insane and blood-stained. She tears her eyes away from the morbid images, whimpering softly.

They say her name, quiet and confused, like she is their mother and they are her child who has woken from a nightmare. “What’s happening to me? What’s happening to us all?” they ask, needy for answers, no matter how brutal the truth may be.

“I don’t know,” she answers truthfully. “I want it to stop. It’s carving out a hole in me and I want it to stop. I want it all to stop,” she begs to no one in particular.

“I want the mirrors to stop breaking… Did you know? A little bit of me breaks every time a mirror breaks… And my weakness is his strength....” They don’t look directly at her, rather _through_ her. Like she is nothing, like she doesn’t exist, like she doesn’t matter. The madness is finally getting them both.

“What do you think heaven is like?” they ask out of the blue. Something about them seems… off. They’ve never been like this. “I don’t think I’ll ever get to see it.” She nods in solemn agreement. They make an odd sound, a sick mixture of a cackle and a sob. She looks away, feeling uncomfortable under their scrutiny. She sees something out of the corner of her eye, a brilliant white light that overtakes them. She glances back and drops her rose in horror.

It’s him. _It’s him._ It’s him it’s him _it’s him it’s him it’s him._

“Hello, doll,” he says, smirking. “Did you miss me?” He takes a step forward, sending her reeling back, scrambling away from him- she hits something cold and turns to see them sprawled on the ground. She puts a hand to her mouth and whimpers quietly. It’s too late.

“Now, now, darling, don’t be rude. It isn’t nice to not say hello to your guest. You don’t it here, but can always take you to the places you _least_ want to go to. The manor, perhaps?” he suggests, flicking his wrist. In an instant, the dreary scenery changes from a black hole to the Living Hell.

“No! Please, stop!” she cries out. He cocks an eyebrow at her, chuckling darkly. He flicks his wrist again, and the prison of souls fades away. He takes a step forward threateningly. She sees something glimmer in his pocket and gasps.

“Oh? You’ve found my little gift, I see,” he says, following her gaze. He takes out his blade and toys with it, examining it with careful eyes. She is frozen in fear. He takes this as a sign to continue and walks towards her until he is standing over her, blade poised to strike. She says nothing, only eyes the sharp metal, terrified.

He brings the blade down on thin air. She has dodged the attack, rolling away. He glares angrily at her. “You want to play dirty, then?” He grins sickeningly. “Good. I love challenges.” He glides over the ground as she stumbles to her feet, running. She is leaving their body behind. _She’s leaving them behind._

She looks back and trips, crying out in pain. He can’t be escaped now. He approaches her slowly, grinning wickedly, enjoying the tension. He raises the knife to strike again- and this time get it right. But the sweet release of death never comes. Instead, she hears a grunt of pain and opens her closed eyes to see him disappear before her eyes. _They_ are behind him, holding her discarded rose like a weapon, a black ooze dripping from its stem.

“Go back to your own world,” they sigh pleadingly. They take one step towards her and collapse, breathing heavily. “I’m sorry,” they say as they, too, start fading away. Her eyes widen in panic.

“No, no, no, don’t go! You can’t- you can’t leave me alone again!” she cries, grabbing their hand.

“I’m sorry,” the repeat pitifully as they fade to nothing. She stares at the space where they’d been. She takes a sharp breath.

“NO!” she screams in rage, betrayal, and pain. She has lost her friends… again…

She notices the rose just beyond. She reaches for it desperately and pricks her finger. She watches the blood on her finger pool before stroking the flower’s petals, hoping for some sort of message that she’s not in the dark, that she’s not forgotten.

But all she feels is death and darkness.


End file.
